10 Main Event Wrestlers Who Were Paid SIGNIFICANTLY More Than Their Opponents

9. Triple H Squashes Jericho At WrestleMania X8 And In Pay

On ‘The Grandest Stage of Them All’ in 2002 Chris Jericho, after a 12-year odyssey travelling the globe in multiple promotions, finally headlined the event as WWF Undisputed Champion. Even though The Rock and Hulk Hogan’s match on the card was the real main event that year, with their ‘Icon vs. Icon’ legendary encounter being the poster for the event, scoring the loudest reaction of the night in the SkyDome in Toronto and both of them likely being paid much more than Jericho.

Someone who definitely earned more than Jericho that night was his opponent Triple H, who earned four times what Jericho came away with. Jericho has commented on his Talk Is Jericho podcast, “It was just a passing conversation between me and Hunter. I found out that he got four-fifths of the pie of the payout from the match and I got one fifth. I was furious.”

Jim Ross as Executive Vice President of Talent Relations at the time handled paydays for wrestlers in the company, noting to Jericho when he enquired why his pay was so low compared to HHH that Vince McMahon’s logic was HHH was a popular babyface with fans paying money to see him defeat Jericho, making him earn that bigger slice of the pie. Ross also mentioned how Triple H obviously was soon to become Vince’s son-in-law to his only daughter so of course, Vince would look out more for him financially.

Jericho, one of the few wrestlers to regularly stand up to Vince McMahon when he feels he’s been wronged, caused enough fuss over it that he got a second paycheque for his match at X8 that was much more generous than the first.